#abrax

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Dear Organic Ontologist,

Although much rarer than the billions of Cybertronians who call the massive city home, Axiom Nexus does contain a sizeable demographic of organic beings. Some of them, mostly humans and Nebulans, were once binary-bonded to Transformers who were accidentally transported to the realm, while others arrived through dimensional expeditions gone awry or freak spacebridge accidents—in some rare cases, these arrivals might even hail from realms beyond the reach of our own multiverse. Once, these new arrivals were once quietly taken aside and returned to their home realities, supposedly “for their own safety”; in reality, of course, this was a political move designed to appease the bio-phobic inhabitants of Cybertron at that time. I do believe that one of my alternate selves once misinterpreted this policy as having persisted into the present day.

Other dimensionally-displaced Cybertronians unintentionally smuggled spores, bacterium, and insect eggs to Cybertron, birthing infestations of invasive species that proved difficult to dislodge. Amidst the scrap piles and garbage heaps of the planet’s underbelly, a strange ecosystem evolved, one that could even support the sentient organics who scrabbled for existence on the margins of society. On the margins, indeed—for as more and more organics wound up arriving, however, exile was simply not an option. Some lucky organics that made it through the labyrinthine bureaucracy were shunted into exclusive levels of the city tailored to their biologies; the vast majority, however—including overlooked Powermasters, criminals on the run, or simply those who could not afford the exorbitant costs—found themselves consigned to the lower levels of the city. These forgotten organics carried on with their lives, living and loving and breeding and dying, and as their numbers swelled a new demographic took shape. Of the millions of organics who currently inhabit the city, more than three-quarters were actually born on Cybertron! 

A tangle of run-down railyards, factories, and warehouses near Seeker-shinai became the Skein, a bustling shantytown where humans, Torkuli, and Abraxans farmed illegally imported fungi and traded upgrades and scrap metal for precious offworld food and water. The off-grid community of Little Nebulos sprang up near the Heap, where cast-off Nebulans, including a sizeable population of ex-Headmasters and Targetmasters, made a living selling kitschy merchandise to Cybertronian tourists. And all but the bravest Cybertronians were advised to keep clear from Carbon Alley and its expert pickpockets and mechanics—for any mechanoids foolhardy enough to power down there might find themselves waking up on cinderblocks.

exams: over

tablet: on